See this place? its the Mount of Olives. The place the Jewish Messiah will return.

Zechariah 14:4-11
4 On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south. 5 You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake[a] in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.

Few weeks ago, I gave a fun “keyboard and mouse” tour to a close friend using video conferencing software. You can see yourself as Google mapped out a lot of Israel in 2011. But no new footage If you want to walk up there using your computer you can see Christian tourists up there and young Arab men selling postcards and the camel available for rides.

Go on. Knock yourself out and look for yourself with this link. 🙂

While I lived out in Jerusalem, I’ve been up this special place many times, both with a tour and on my own. For some reason, I can’t find these photos I took more recently.

If you are curious, click the above links and “walk” around with your mouse. See the half circular steps for looking out? Now looking behind the lads with the camel, and see the parking spaces for tourist buses? Now look ahead towards the Jewish graves and you can see a small road for the ground keepers to drive through here. Something has been added you won’t see.

Take a look here. You won’t see this on the Street map view as the footage is from 2011. The bird’s eye footage is far more recent. And you can see this new structure which has appeared. So, Israel has built a mini police station upon the Mount of Olives site. This small caravan sized building, when I visited in 2022, saw it had some radio aerial or something on top. There were two young police officers with a drone which they use to do security checks. They were looking a bit bored looking at their phones.

Then it hit me. Who is going to be noticing Jesus’ return first? Maybe excited Christian pilgrims who are up there on a tour and their tired Israeli tour bus driver who is having a coffee and a cigarette. Or, these young policemen if this place is always manned 24/7. I’ve often wondered if Jesus would have a new crew of disciples. It just might be possible that they are going to relay pretty interesting conversations to their colleagues with their radios when he’s back.

EDIT: I found a picture of the police station from 2016.

1. Items in the wrong places – 2. Galilee rooftop chats of faith – 3. Storms and the Queen’s funeral – 4. The town about the rejected stone Rosh Pina – 5. Who might witness Jesus’ return before anyone else? – 6. Galilee crops – 7. Soon…..